Peter Homans has died

Peter Homans (1930-2009)

Peter Homans, Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Religious Studies at the University of Chicago, died May 30, 2009.

He was born in New York City and earned degrees from Virginia Theological Seminary (B.D.) and University of Chicago Divinity School (M.A. & Ph.D.). His work emphasized psychoanalysis and is expressed primarily in three books,

• Theology After Freud: An Interpretive Inquiry


• Jung in Context


• The Ability to Mourn: Disillusionment and the Social Origins of Psychoanalysis

His final book is an edited volume, Symbolic Loss: The Ambiguity of Mourning and Memory at Century's End.

Homans was known for his teaching as well as for his scholarship. A warm tribute to him can be found at the University of Chicago, where the Dean of the Divinity school describes him as meticulous with details, but never forgetting the larger questions. Homans taught at the University of Chicago for 36 years.